The equity issue will probably be the hardest for the state to defend. Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, made the case late in the legislative session when he cited the vast funding disparity between the top and lowest funding school district in each of the 31 senatorial districts.

Adequate funding is a more difficult issue. What is adequate?

Cutting $4 billion from public education despite a projected enrollment increase of 170,000 students over the next two years will hurt the state’s defense that current spending levels are adequate, Northside ISD Superintendent John Folks says.

School districts won their adequacy argument at the trial court level seven years ago before the state Supreme Court rejected that portion of the case.

However, the court, in its Nov. 2005 ruling, did not shut the door to future “adequacy” claims, saying: “But an impending constitutional violation is not an existing one, and it remains to be seen whether the system’s predicted drift toward constitutional inadequacy will be avoided by legislative reaction to widespread calls for changes.”

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and his lawyers argued at the time that courts have no business determining whether legislative appropriations for public education are adequate, or not. That’s a political question for legislators to decide, Abbott and his lawyers argued at the time.

The Supreme Court responded by declaring the Legislature’s role as being “primary but not absolute” in determining the constitution’s requirement for an efficient public education system.

State leaders often cite the multi-billion dollar increase public education spending today compared to public education spending a decade ago. That is accurate. But left unsaid is the fact that Texas has 873,998 more students in public schools today than it did 10 years ago. The enrollment increase would cost about $7 billion extra – not including schools and classrooms to accommodate them.

Also, the number of children from low income families has increased by 913,000 over that same time period. Low income children are more expensive to educate. That factor is not mentioned in conjunction with spending increases for public education over the years.

In its Nov. 22, 2005 ruling, the Texas Supreme Court said it “must only decide whether public education is achieving the general diffusion of knowledge the Constitution requires.

“Whether public education is achieving all it should – that is, whether public education is a sufficient and fitting preparation of Texas children for the future – involves political and policy considerations properly directed to the Legislature. Deficiencies and disparities in public education that fall short of a constitutional violation find remedy not through the judicial process, but through the political processes of legislation and elections,” the court said in its ruling.

But state leaders and lawmakers can’t set the bar too low, either, the court said.

“It cannot be so inadequate that it does not provide for a general diffusion of knowledge, or so inefficient that districts which must achieve this general diffusion of knowledge do not have substantially equal access to available revenues to perform their mission; or so unsuitable that it cannot because of its structure achieve its purpose,” the court said in its ruling.

The justices also repeated a warning the court has been making since school finance fights reached the high court in the late 1980s. Pouring more money into the system might buy time but challenges “will repeat until the system is overhauled.”

State leaders and lawmakers continue to rely on local property taxes for the lion’s share of public education funding. They reduced tax rates five years ago to resolve what, in essence, had become a statewide property tax because so many school districts had reached the maximum rate. The state Constitution prohibits a statewide property tax.

But more than 200 school districts have already reached the new maximum taxing rate that legislators settled on in 2006.

The next school finance case could also include a complaint that Texas again has an unconstitutional statewide property tax because so many school districts have been forced to the maximum rate.